I cry out, fury and fear making my voice a sharp thing. How dare he attack her?
They freeze. Then, slowly, the prince turns to look at me, his pale eyes glistening with malice. I raise my chin, glaring at him. “Zayyida,” I say, forcing my voice to come out clear and strong. “Can I be of service to you?”
“Amraeya,” Alyrra says, her voice not quite steady. “Be so kind as to call—”
“Get out.” Her brother drops her arm and starts toward me, striding across the room. “Now.”
Alyrra takes the opportunity to slip around the side of the bed, heading toward the blue bell pull there.
“I cannot,” I tell the prince, playing for time. “It is our duty to always be present with the princess. Zayyid.” I tack the last word on as an intentional afterthought.
His expression, already ugly, grows meaner still.
“Perhaps,” I say as he comes to a stop before me, his chest as broad as a wall, “you would prefer to have this conversation in the sitting room. Then I might sit out of the way and not be a hindrance to you.”
“Your servants require schooling,” the prince says to his sister. Alyrra has gained the other side of the room, her hand reaching for the bell pull. He starts to turn toward her.
“Incorrect,” I snap, fear making me reckless. He can’t see what she’s doing—not if he’s really capable of attacking her. “It is you who have no manners, but that is hardly a surprise.”
“You little piece—”
“We have heard,” I interrupt, stepping farther into the room so that he has to turn to follow me, his back still toward Alyrra as she tugs on the bell pull. “We have heard,” I repeat, “that your people have little consideration for your women. Or perhaps it is just you. However, in Menaiya, a man cannot corner a woman in her bedroom, even if she is his sister. Or do you have so little honor that you are lost even to that?”
He lunges forward. I try to twist away, but I’m too slow—his fingers close on the front of my tunic and he shoves me back, slamming my shoulders into the wall.
“Brother, let her go,” Alyrra cries. But her quad isn’t here yet—even they cannot move that quickly—and the prince’s face is twisted with fury.
I feel an answering rage in my breast. “Attacking a cripple?” I taunt him, my voice coming out with a slight wheeze. “Do you think that will impress the court?”
His lips lift in a snarl, and then his hand slams into my cheek in an openhanded slap. My face snaps to the side, and my other cheek hits the wall. Pain blinds me. I stumble as I try to clear my vision, sliding slightly, for he no longer holds my tunic.
“Stop!” Alyrra cries. “Stop!”
“Your maid must learn her place, just as you ought. I’ve no compunction in teaching you both,” he says, turning to her.
He’s going after her again. I realize it as he takes his first step, see the terror in Alyrra’s eyes. Where is that thrice-cursed quad? I take a deep breath and launch myself at the prince’s back, one arm hooking around his neck at an awkward enough angle that, between the sudden twist I force upon him and my weight slamming into his back, he staggers a step. Then he reaches around, grabs me by the arm, and tears me off him, sending me backpedaling onto the floor.
A quad bursts into the room, swords drawn. The prince pivots, and then steps back in surprise. They surround him in a moment, swords held high and steady. I sit on my backside on the carpets, staring at them, my breath coming in gasps. Captain Matsin glances from me to the princess.
“Take him out of here,” Alyrra says, enunciating each word clearly, her voice finally gaining the sound of steel. “Post a guard at the foot of the stairs, and see that he never, never has access to this wing again. Am I understood?”
“Yes, zayyida,” Matsin says, dipping his head. His sword does not waver.
“You are too dramatic, as always, little sister,” the prince says, smirking. “What is a conversation between siblings? If your maid had behaved better, she wouldn’t be where she is now.”
I pull my legs beneath my skirt, try to get my feet beneath me. How dare he?
“Get out now,” Alyrra says in a strangled voice.
The soldiers close around the prince, and I have the distinct feeling that if he doesn’t start moving, they will use force. He must sense it as well, for he starts for the door. “Another time, then,” he says as his foot crosses the threshold.
Captain Matsin reaches to close the door. “There will be no other time.”
It is as much a threat as the prince’s words.
Chapter
20
“Keep the cold compress applied a little longer to reduce the swelling,” Berrila ni Cairlin, the palace’s healer-mage, tells me. “Beyond that, there’s not much to be done.”
I grimace. Earlier, Berrila sent a wash of cool healing magic through me to slow the bruising across my cheek. As the ache of my swollen cheek eased, I felt the pain of the raw skin and healing blisters on my turned foot gentle as well. When I opened one eye in surprise, Berrila met my gaze as if daring me to say a word. I didn’t, of course. There’s no way I’m arguing with anyone helping my foot heal.
But even her magic could only do so much. Berrila was clear that my body would have to heal in its own time. Magic is good for stitching cuts together and stopping internal bleeding and any manner of things, but the body must still complete its own healing.
I sit in my desk chair and hold the compress to my cheek. Mina sits across the room in her own chair, watching me grimly. She has said very little since I explained what happened, her expression shuttered. It’s a stark contrast to her fury over the impostor’s father presenting himself at court just yesterday.
Berrila bids us a brusque farewell and departs. I lean my head against the chair back, my mind replaying the incident with the foreign prince. I should never have allowed him through to the princess—I should have called out loudly for him to stop, effectively warning Alyrra of his arrival. Instead, I scampered after him like a fool, and put both Alyrra and myself at risk.
Footsteps approach, and I open my eyes to find Alyrra herself stepping into the room. I start to rise to curtsy, but she holds up a hand. “Please don’t get up. How are you feeling?”
I set the compress aside. It seems rude to speak with it attached to my face, even if it means she’ll see my cheek more clearly. “I am well, zayyida.”
We stare at each other a moment, and I cannot tell what she is thinking. Then she turns to Mina. “Would you wait in the common room? I wish to speak with Amraeya in private.” She turns back to me as Mina moves to the door. “In truth, Zayyid Kestrin wishes to speak with you as well. Will you see him?”
“Of course, zayyida,” I say unhappily. I failed him, fell short in doing what he asked of me, and I can only hope he won’t be too angry with me.
Mina slips out, curtsying again as she reaches the hall, and then Kestrin enters. His expression remains still as he catches sight of me, the bruise marring my face, but his eyes brighten with fury, the emotion sharpening his cheekbones.
I rise and dip into a curtsy, my foot aching as always. One would think you could get used to the pain, but it is always shifting, putting my teeth on edge—which only makes me feel the stiff ache of my bruised cheek more. At least it distracts me from the fact that Kestrin is staring at me, his eyes brilliant with rage.
“Kelari Amraeya,” he says finally.
“Zayyid,” I say, easing out of my curtsy. “I ask your forgiveness—”
“We are very much in your debt.”
I blink up at him, taken aback. He crosses the room to take my hand and bow over it, deeper than necessary.
I gape at him. Is he serious? What debt can he mean when I allowed the foreign prince to corner Alyrra? If I’d been faster, I could have warned the princess. If I’d been wiser, I’d have found a way to keep the foreign prince distracted without inciting him to violence. If I’d simply had more experience as an attendant, I likely would have know
n what to do from the outset.
Kestrin catches my expression and his own eases slightly. He steps back, releasing my hand. “You provided Zayyida Alyrra the opportunity to summon a quad. Unfortunately, that ‘opportunity’ came at a cost to yourself.”
Relief floods through me: he doesn’t blame me. And Alyrra must not either. I shrug and say easily, “I’ll mend.”
“Indeed,” Kestrin says, his tone . . . bemused?
Was I supposed to wallow in misery before him? Does he think I’ve never dealt with pain before?
“I’ve spoken to Filadon. We—”
“You what?” I break in, horrified. This is certainly something I would have preferred to relate myself, if only to be able to assure my family at once that I was not that badly hurt.
Kestrin’s mouth quirks. His anger is still there, in the sharpness of his cheekbones and the faint glitter of his eyes, but he’s tamped it down. And it isn’t directed at me. “I’m afraid it was necessary. The story is spreading through the court like wildfire. It seems the prince did not realize that our attendants are all from noble families, unlike the servants he brought with him.”
“I’m not all that noble,” I point out.
Kestrin raises an eyebrow. “You are Filadon’s kin, and that is noble enough in our eyes.”
I’m actually Melly’s kin, to be accurate, but Alyrra is shaking her head at me from where she stands just behind Kestrin, so I keep my mouth shut.
“The prince has been placed under guard as a protection for our people. Only his own servants may enter his rooms. He has been invited to depart shortly after the wedding.” Kestrin sighs. “Zayyida Alyrra and I have discussed with my father what further measures we wish to take.”
I nod. The man is the crown prince to his own land. Just the fact that he’s been asked to shorten his stay is significant.
“However that may play out, though, tempers are running high. You have become quite the heroine in the court’s eyes, and the more they see of your injuries, the more furious your new self-proclaimed friends will be.”
Self-proclaimed—? It isn’t surprising that the court would rally around their prince and his betrothed against a foreign attack, especially when the attack came from her brother. It isn’t even surprising that the people who wouldn’t acknowledge me two days ago would defend me now, the honor of the court at stake. What’s surprising is how very candidly Kestrin has acknowledged their hypocrisy.
He goes on, “That leaves us with the question of how to navigate the next week or so.”
By which he means the wedding with all its festivities.
Alyrra takes a half step forward to join the conversation. “Verin Filadon has requested that you be allowed to stay with him until the foreign prince has departed. And, to be sure, that would certainly ease relations in the court.”
That’s how it will go then. Disappointment flickers through me, though I’m not sure why, or for whom I feel it. “As you wi—”
Kestrin coughs once, hand raised to his mouth in what can only be an affectation. I blink at him.
“We have discussed his request,” Alyrra goes on, a slight tilt of her head to include Kestrin, “and with your permission will deny it.”
“You would?” I say blankly.
Kestrin grins, looking suddenly and strangely boyish. “Zayyida Alyrra needs a full set of four attendants to match mine for the ceremony this afternoon. And all the evening celebrations. And the wedding processional. I suppose I could make do with three, but really, I am used to having my four.”
I stare at him.
“You don’t really mind, do you?”
Kestrin awaits my response. But I don’t have an answer—not one they want to hear. Because staying at the forefront means that the whole of the court will be looking at me, pitying me for my bruised face and turned foot, and I don’t want that. I’ve never wanted that.
Alyrra says, hesitantly, “Amraeya, if you prefer not to step forward, then we will support you in that. But I would not hide you unless you wished it.”
“I understand. But”—I glance from her to Kestrin and back again, knowing I’m missing something—“what is your real purpose?” I can’t forget that they are both politicians at heart. He has some purpose here, and no doubt Alyrra does as well.
They exchange a glance.
“What is yours?” Kestrin asks instead. “This is your decision, kelari. If you wish, you can stand before the nobles of the court and look that man in the eye, and show him that he has not won—because he will be there. We cannot keep him from the ceremonies, though I might wish it.”
“And if I stay back, then he will think he won?”
“Yes,” Alyrra says, her voice weary. “It is how he reasons.”
Which means that keeping me beside her at the wedding is the only way Alyrra can make a clear statement of what she will and won’t allow, and who has the real power between them.
“Well, we can’t allow that to stand,” I say firmly. I will simply have to deal with the looks. It will be worth it, to raise my chin to that despicable prince and let him know that he has not cowed me, nor beaten Alyrra. “The wedding ceremony is in another hour or two, isn’t it?”
Alyrra smiles, but she still looks tired, wrung out. “We will be a little late, I expect. Fashionably so, I’m sure. I’ll send in one of my maids to help you.”
“And I’ve no doubt everyone will know exactly why we’re late,” Kestrin says with relish. “Thank you, kelari.”
I dip my head. Whatever politics he’s playing at by using me, I don’t particularly mind right now.
He departs with a polite farewell. Alyrra follows him to the door, then pauses to look back at me, as if her words were caught on the tip of her tongue. Perhaps she wants to warn me about her brother again, though I already know what sort of man he is. Or perhaps it’s regret in her eye and she doesn’t know how to voice it.
“Zayyida?” I ask.
She hesitates. “You’ll tell me if you decide you’d rather not be there? Or even if you come now but prefer not to attend me to later functions?”
“I will,” I say slowly. My mind flicks back to that moment when he slammed me against the wall—and when I threw myself at him after that. And before that, to that obnoxious thief Bren, holding my hand in his, baring my bruises, and giving advice for which I had hardly spared two thoughts.
“Amraeya?”
“I wish I knew how to fight. How to defend myself and you. I think I’d feel better knowing that.”
Alyrra stares at me, and then her lips curve in a faint smile. “As would I. That, at least, I should be able to do something about. Thank you, Amraeya.”
And that’s the other thing I would change. “Back home, everyone calls me Rae.”
Her smile is brighter, truer, as she says, “Rae, then. Thank you.”
Chapter
21
By the time I’ve dressed and the princess’s maid has finished styling my hair and lining my eyes with kohl, I’ve no doubt we’re running very late. As I rise to my feet, I glance at the mirror. The handprint upon my face has darkened to a deeper red with hints of blue. My cheek is swollen, the skin slightly shiny. My other cheek bears a much smaller, lighter bruise where my face connected with the wall. However lovely my hair and makeup, no one’s going to be looking at it.
“Is it all right?” the maid asks uncertainly.
“Perfect,” I say, and slide my feet into my new slippers, lined with velvet by Melly’s request to cushion my latest set of blisters. The shoes are surprisingly comfortable.
I hurry through the common room on my way to the princess’s rooms. No doubt I’m the last to be ready. As I reach the hall, Jasmine steps out of the princess’s suite.
“Kelari Amraeya,” she says quietly.
I pause, taken aback by her manner. “Veria?”
“I—” She comes to a stop before me, her gaze fixed on my cheek. Then she grimaces and looks me in the eye. “I’m sorry th
is happened to you. I’m not sure I agree with the princess’s choice in making you an attendant, but even you don’t deserve such treatment.”
“Thank you?” I say, for there is as much kindness as insult in her words. In an attempt to change her focus, I ask, “Is the princess all right?”
Jasmine lifts a shoulder. “She seems fine. I think she’s used to . . .” She hesitates.
“Used to hiding things like this?” I ask.
She swallows. “So it would seem.”
“I suppose the court now has a better idea of why she might not have looked for help from the royal family after she was betrayed,” I say slowly. “I think I would have stuck with the horses myself.”
“Geese,” Jasmine corrects me.
“Geese. Much safer than her brother.”
She tilts her head, kohl-darkened eyes narrowed in consideration. Can a betrayal actually benefit a person, if it takes them away from what they fear? Was the princess protecting herself by embracing her new life as a goose girl? Was she, perhaps, not as much of a fool as the court believes?
Jasmine makes a faint, thoughtful sound, and turns toward the door. “Come along, or we’ll be late. I told the princess I’d fetch you.”
I fall into step with her and we make our way quietly to the princess’s suite. Alyrra looks exquisite, the pale pink and deeper rose of her attire bringing out the natural color in her cheeks. She is steady and quiet, and asks me only once if I am well. We escort her down to the great receiving hall, and from there out the main doors to where a line of carriages waits to bear the royal party to Speakers’ Hall.
I look out as we clatter through the city, past buildings strung with brightly colored flags, people of all ages lining the road. We come finally to a soaring bridge that spans the river runring past the hall. With the water glinting in the bright spring sunlight, the river seems somehow both eternal and ephemeral. Something that will long outlast me, and the palace, and all my worries, even as the water I look upon is continuously changing, being carried on to the sea in a cycle of flow and rainfall our scholars are still trying to understand. The river I see now, and the river I will pass over on our return, will be two different rivers, though they flow through the same place.
The Theft of Sunlight Page 14